


through the chrysalis

by bloodlust



Category: NCT (Band), SuperM (Korea Band)
Genre: Courtship, M/M, Murder, mentions of body mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:35:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27147430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodlust/pseuds/bloodlust
Summary: It was both terrifying and exhilarating, Mark supposed, that none of the murderers and serial killers he had read about on text could ever measure up to The Sculptor.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Comments: 39
Kudos: 199





	through the chrysalis

**Author's Note:**

> happy halloween, everyone! 👻
> 
> quick note, all the places used in this fic are taken from the tv series called ‘Hannibal’. please do not proceed if you’re uncomfortable with mentions of body mutilation as this fic heavily relies on that.

#  **MARK**

** DULUTH, MINNESOTA **

Mark’s breath hitched at the sight before him.

He could almost hear his heart pounding against his chest, a rhythmic chant that seemed to only get louder with each passing second, and he could feel the hairs at the back of his neck stood up as his skin prickled in a strange mixture of awe and disgust.

A pale, handsome, but also very naked man around his late-thirties floated just a few inches above the altar, carrying a wooden bow and a metallic arrow with a human heart, presumably his own, pierced at the very tip.

His entire body—along with the thin, almost translucent layers of skin from his back that were flayed and stretched out to form his wings—was being held still by thick gut strings that were then hooked onto both the floor and ceiling of the church’s sanctuary.

The victim’s eyeballs were also taken out, Mark noted, replaced by a variety of vibrant flowers that matched the single red rose placed in between his sewn lips.

It was a sight to behold.

Disturbingly and utterly gruesome, _yes_ , but Mark found that his eyes couldn’t seem to take themselves off of it. _Hell_ , he couldn’t even manage to take a single step toward it even if he tried. It was as if he was looking at a classic Renaissance masterpiece—one that was worthy of being displayed in a museum.

“What do you think?”

The familiar voice of one of his colleagues pulled him out of the tableau’s spell, kicking him back into the moment and consequently prompting him to say the very first thing that had popped in his mind as soon as he saw what the killer had done to the body. “Eros.”

Lucas gave him a confused look. “What?”

“The Greek god of love,” Johnny supplemented from near the altar, examining the pierced heart on the arrow above him. It was adorned with small crystals that reflected the lights inside the church, Mark observed, and it was also wrapped in another knotted rope. Johnny turned to them, his eyebrows raised as if he was impressed with what he had just seen. “The Sculptor outdid himself this time, I’ll give him that. I don’t think I even have the words to describe what we’re looking at.”

 _The Sculptor_.

The two words echoed in Mark’s ears, sending an ice-cold shiver down his spine as a montage of still images flashed in his mind. He hadn’t heard the nickname in a crime scene for a long time, but he could still vividly remember the feeling of seeing the killer’s creation for the first time.

 _Indescribable_.

“That’s weird,” Jaehyun said, looking down at them from the ladder they had propped up to reach the body. “I can’t find his eyeballs. As far as I can remember, The Sculptor had never taken any trophies from his previous victims.”

They pondered on it for a moment, all staring intently at the body to make sense of Jaehyun’s statement, before Mark’s eyes eventually wandered back to the vibrant flowers placed in the man’s eye sockets. The flowers looked fresh, as if they were just picked out from a garden and simply added onto the body to give it a splash of color.

 _Except_...

“Poison,” Mark realized after a long pause, catching the attention of his other colleagues. He cleared his throat and vaguely gestured at the man’s head. “The flowers. Monkshood, lily of the valley, foxgloves, english broom, and autumn crocus are all deadly.”

“Some of those flowers aren’t native here,” Lucas commented, taking another picture of the man’s eyes and zooming in on them. “He must’ve grown them himself.”

Johnny sighed audibly and then clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth before helping Jaehyun down the ladder. He had never seen the man look so worried. “It’s been a long time since his last one.”

“We know he kills in threes,” Mark responded, trying to shake away the memories of The Sculptor’s last victim from his mind. “If this is him, we’re going to have to expect at least two more tableaux in the coming weeks.”

Their group fell silent again. A dead, heavy weight in the air hung on their shoulders as the other crime scene investigators worked around them, doing a thorough sweep of the church in case The Sculptor somehow got sloppy and left a piece of evidence behind.

Even though it had his typical dramatic flair, his last known _creation_ was nowhere near as grand as his latest—the previous one was simple, probably just enough to leave a message, and it only portrayed a man holding a bouquet of purple flowers while he was secured upside down on a metallic pole with a rope that was tied with a true lover’s knot.

That was more than a year ago, incidentally during Mark’s first week of working for the Unit, and it was public knowledge that he hadn’t _transformed_ anyone since.

They had to be prepared for the worst.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Jennie mused as she took her face shield off. “His last kill looked like he had already found who he was looking for.”

The comment made Lucas look up from his camera, lips pursed in thought. “Maybe he’s just trying to flaunt off his newfound inspiration to mock us.”

 _No_ , Mark wanted to say, unexpectedly feeling the need to protest The Sculptor’s intention behind his work, but decided to stop himself before he could blurt it out loud. His eyes drifted to the body once more, trying to figure out if he could view it in the way that The Sculptor wanted it to be seen.

He immediately knew that it wasn’t just made for a stranger’s viewing pleasure—this was way more than that—and it was definitely not intended to be a mere display of The Sculptor’s creativity. There was something personal and emotional about this one, especially considering the delicately crafted state of his victim, and it felt too genuine and too strong for any of them to just gloss over.

Then everything suddenly clicked.

 _It was a love confession_.

#  **LUCAS**

** F.B.I ACADEMY  
QUANTICO, VIRGINIA **

_How far are you willing to go for someone_?

The question echoed at the back of Lucas’ mind. A cliché, _no doubt_ , but it was one of the questions that had always bugged him. It sat in a secluded, dark corner of his mind, patiently waiting for the right moment to pop up, and then it would annoy him until he felt lightheaded from thinking of an appropriate answer.

“Is anyone familiar with the case against Jeffrey Preston?”

Several hands shot up, all seemingly eager to get their lecturer’s attention. _And who wouldn’t_? Lucas asked himself with a small smile, tilting his head to the side as he watched the man gracefully pace the entire length of the lecture hall’s front.

Mark had the kind of charm that he could turn on and off to his advantage, Lucas remarked. Although he was the youngest and the most recent addition to their team, the man had time and time again proved himself to be incredibly useful for the Behavioral Analysis Unit. He could easily piece everything together, seeing the things that weren’t obvious just by looking at the present evidence, and he could weave an almost complete psychological profile in a matter of minutes.

It was as if the man could understand and deep dive inside the mind of a killer even without meeting them.

“Jeffrey Preston was the owner of Preston Pharmaceuticals and the primary suspect of the 2017 Preston-Scott family murders,” Lucas answered before Mark could call on someone, causing everyone to turn their attention in his direction. “He was suspected of killing his wife, his son, and his three daughters in a crime of passion, but was then eventually acquitted on all counts due to the lack of substantial evidence.”

Mark raised a brow, possibly taken aback by his voice suddenly booming out of nowhere, but the man’s expression quickly shifted into a delighted, almost fond look once he spotted him sitting at the very top row of the lecture hall.

“Thank you, Special Agent Wong,” the man commended with a broad smile, slightly nodding at him before turning back to the huge projector screen. Mark began clicking on his pointer, showing a series of images that revealed a lifeless Jeffrey Preston in the middle of a field.

“However, exactly two years after the Preston-Scott family murders took place, Jeffrey Preston was found dead in the middle of the Bedell Cellars’ vineyard, the very same venue where he and his late wife, Lauren, got married.”

Lucas leaned back, pressing his tongue onto the roof of his mouth as he studied the graphic picture on the screen.

It had already been more than a year since he had captured the photos, almost six months after he had entered the BAU, and yet looking at them had somehow transported him back into the past—as if Preston’s death had only occurred yesterday.

His eyes went back to the man standing in front of them, watching his movements closely. It was Mark’s first week with the Unit when they received the last of The Sculptor’s creations, but he had never once heard the man talk about the case outside of the Headquarters.

 _Until now_.

“What do you see?” Mark asked, leaning against his desk as he surveyed the crowd. His eyes darted around, passing by each of the raised hands until they eventually settled on a young, short-haired woman who was seated in the middle section of the lecture hall. “Yes, Miss Shin? Care to share your thoughts?”

The woman sat upright, straightening her posture before clearing her throat. Lucas could barely see her face from where he was sitting, but her body visibly tensed up as soon as she heard Mark call her name. “He’s an offering.”

Mark stood up, seemingly intrigued by the woman’s answer. “Carry on.”

“The flowers,” she responded a little calmer this time. Mark clicked on his pointer, moving back to a picture that showed the flowers clearly, and gestured for the woman to continue. “Purple flowers often symbolize love at first sight. The killer was offering Preston to the person who caught his eye.”

Lucas couldn’t help but grin.

It was the exact same analysis that Mark had provided their team when he first saw what had been done to the body. He said with so much certainty and conviction, even pointing out the true lover’s knot that was used to secure the body on the pole, that their Agent-in-Charge scrapped the previous profile they had of The Sculptor and asked Mark to help them make a new one.

“That’s a great insight, Miss Shin,” Mark said just as an alarm went off, indicating the end of their class. The man pursed his lips and nodded to himself, going around his desk to close his laptop. “Now, everyone, as an assignment, I want you all to imagine killing Jeffrey Preston.”

Mark’s eyes zeroed in on him, an amused expression painted on his otherwise stoic face as if he was directly addressing him. “Why would you choose him? How would you do it? And how will you do it without leaving a shred of evidence behind? Think about those things and I’ll see you all in our next lecture.”

Lucas chuckled.

 _Interesting_.

He waited until half of the students exited the room before making his way into the lecture hall’s slightly elevated platform, putting his hands in his pockets as he watched the man tidy his desk.

“I should join your classes more often,” Lucas said as a greeting, politely returning the smiles and nods of the rest of Mark’s students as they passed by him.

“Don’t,” Mark warned with a glare. “You’ll distract my students.”

Lucas huffed out a laugh. “Only the students?”

Mark glowered at him. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“I do,” he confirmed, reading one of the essays on Mark’s desk. “But Johnny asked me to come down here and tell you that your next class has been cancelled.”

Just like that, he felt Mark froze. “Why?”

Lucas sighed in resignation, tapping his foot lightly on the floor to bid his time before his eyes finally found their way back up at the other man’s face.

“We found another one.”

#  **MARK**

** ISLAND RIVER, MINNESOTA **

_Well_ … _holy shit_.

When Lucas had informed him that they had found another one of The Sculptor’s creation, he half-expected their team to be flown out the next morning, hoping that they would be briefed first about the victim before they reached the site.

Three and a half hours after he had concluded his first lecture of the day, however, Mark found himself avoiding the overgrown wild rice of Minnesota’s very own Island River as they cruised to wherever the serial killer decided to leave his latest creation.

The dory they were riding slowed down just as Mark saw a figure at a distance, naked and half-submerged in the water, and immediately recognized who The Sculptor’s latest victim was.

 _Huh_.

There was nothing remotely funny about any of this, _nothing at all_ , and yet a bubble of laughter kept finding its way up into Mark’s throat, purposefully trying to force its way out and make him look like he was out of his mind.

Cynthia Aguilar, a renowned billionaire and businesswoman in the field of real estate, stood upright in the middle of the shallow lake with nothing but a necklace with a lion-shaped pendant.

Her skull was sawed wide open and her brain was replaced with small twigs and grasses that resembled a bird’s nest. Her arms, on the other hand, were stitched together and folded against her chest to lay out her hands—as if she was asking for an offering—where three apples sat untouched on her palms, all ripe and yellow with little specks of red.

Mark found the whole setup strange.

He couldn’t place his finger on what it was, but this particular tableau didn’t feel like it was just an admission of The Sculptor’s feelings.

Although it wasn’t as intricate as the last one, this creation felt a little more intense—like the killer was asking _someone_ of _something_.

Even the single red rose in her mouth, which was The Sculptor’s signature, wasn’t sewn in between her lips; instead, it was coming out of her opened mouth.

“I wouldn’t even be surprised if this was just a copycat,” Jaehyun muttered somewhere behind him, struggling to balance himself on the dory. “Her company employed people to harvest wild rice in this lake and then paid them with shit once she had gotten what she wanted.”

“She fits his other victims’ profiles, though,” Jennie pointed out from a different boat. “Overly rich, involved in some shady business, and had basically gotten away with all the labor and environmental issues that she and her business caused. I’m sort of surprised that he didn’t kill her sooner.”

Johnny hummed in agreement. “Even The Sculptor wants to eat the rich.”

Mark didn’t add anything to their discussion, tuning out the noise around him instead as he concentrated on the body in the water.

They had already known from the beginning that The Sculptor had an appetite for transforming the rich: Roa Tuttle, Peter Schramm, Maria Gloria, José Mortel, Ferdinand Marcos, Jeffrey Preston, Francis Duke, and now Cynthia Aguilar.

All with immense wealth… but all with extremely questionable morals.

Knowing how powerful those people used to be, The Sculptor must be incredibly charming and manipulative to lure so many of them to their deaths.

It was both fascinating and terrifying.

At least The Sculptor’s victims had one thing in common, Mark supposed, but with the number of people who wanted all of these people dead, it was getting harder and harder for them to find out The Sculptor’s true identity.

The serial killer had already amassed hundreds of thousands of followers online, with most of them even branding him as their hero, and his fans only kept increasing with every kill.

Everyone in the Unit knew that it was just a matter of time before copycats would start appearing.

“He left another one,” Johnny murmured beside him, prompting him to look away from the water and cast a questioning look at his side. The man simply released a breath. “Jaehyun found a necklace with a cross pendant buried inside Duke’s chest at the lab.”

Mark turned back to the body, eyeing the lion-shaped pendant that sat undisturbed between her breasts.

 _A cross and a lion_.

It wasn’t an unusual combination, but it was odd nonetheless.

The Sculptor was sentimental, that much was already given, but Mark had never expected him to use actual jewelry just to inform his muse that _they_ are his muse.

It seemed a little bit too excessive, Mark thought to himself, chewing on his bottom lip as he finally realized what The Sculptor was asking from his muse.

“A second body this month, huh?” Lucas remarked, trying to get a little closer to the body for another picture without making the boat tilt over. “His waiting period seems to be getting shorter and shorter.”

“It’s because he’s courting someone.”

He sensed several heads, even the ones that weren’t from his team, shot up and turned to his direction as soon as they heard his words.

A strange look passed by Lucas’ face, Mark noticed, but it was gone in the blink of an eye before he could figure out what it meant. “What makes you say that?”

“The apples.” He waved at the three yellow apples on Cynthia Aguilar’s cold hands. “The Sculptor occasionally takes his inspiration from Greek mythology.”

“Meaning?” Jaehyun asked behind him.

“Throwing apples at someone in Ancient Greece meant that you wanted to propose to them,” Mark explained. “But some historians would argue that the original golden apples given to Zeus and Hera by Gaia were linked to courtship.”

The rest of his team fell silent, probably to ponder on what he had just said, and it stayed that way for a couple of minutes until Johnny sighed audibly, raking his fingers through his hair as he gritted his teeth. “Are you saying there’s a possibility that his next victim won’t be the last one for this batch?”

“No,” he answered solemnly. “I’m saying he’s going to continue killing until he finally catches his muse’s attention.”

#  **MARK**

** WOLF TRAP, VIRGINIA **

The third body was found approximately three weeks after the last one.

A little longer than usual, Mark noted, but judging by the social status of the victim and the state of his body, Mark could definitely understand why this creation had taken so long.

Donald John Truman, another real estate business tycoon and a former television personality was placed on an antique wooden chair that was wrapped with the thorny vines of a recently uprooted bougainvillea. He wore nothing but a flower wreath, a golden chain around his neck, and the same vibrant yet poisonous flowers from Duke’s eyes sewn into the different parts of his skin.

Unlike The Sculptor’s previous creations, however, this one had three roses placed in between his lips.

Mark dragged his gaze downwards, biting the insides of his cheeks while his mind began to generate ideas as to what The Sculptor’s latest creation meant, before finally settling his eyes on the man’s opened stomach and the instrument that was propped up on his lap.

The lyre’s steel arms and crowbar were polished with a golden finish, looking a little worn out despite the new paint, and its seven strings were made out of the victim’s intestines, neatly arranged to show how that was coming from his insides.

 _Apollo’s Lyre_ , Mark thought, wondering if the creation had anything to do with The Sculptor’s theme, but immediately scrapped the idea.

It didn’t make any sense.

A part of him selfishly wished for The Sculptor to shorten his cooling-off period. It was wrong and awful of him to even think about that option—and he knew that, _of course_ , especially since even innocent people’s lives could be at stake if the spree continued—but, in his defense, the serial killer’s tableaux were their only source of evidence.

The more evidence they could gather, the closer they were to finding out whose attention The Sculptor was vying for.

“So,” he heard Lucas say behind him, prompting Mark to look back. “What do you think?”

He turned at the body once more, taking a full picture of it in his mind. Mark didn’t know what came over him the second time he laid his eyes on the body. It was as if something shifted in the air, and he found himself admiring the creation more instead of looking at it as an unsolvable puzzle.

“It’s beautiful.”

Lucas didn’t say anything in return for a couple of seconds, probably too stunned by his answer, Mark guessed, but he did let out a low, somewhat amused snort. The man stalked forward, taking a couple of pictures from their distance for documentation, before looking back at him with an unreadable expression.

“Hm,” Lucas hummed with a small smile. “That’s new.”

Mark cocked an eyebrow, wondering what the man was implying, but before he could ask Lucas what he meant, the man strolled forward to join their other colleagues as they examined the body, leaving him alone to his thoughts.

He found himself wanting to laugh again, just as he had wanted to laugh when they saw Cynthia Aguilar’s body three weeks ago.

Even now, after seeing four of The Sculptor’s creations up close, everything about this case still felt surreal to him.

The Sculptor had never slipped up. His creations—at least the ones that Mark had seen with his own two eyes—were each treated with care.

Nothing was ever half-assed.

Mark had always been fascinated with serial killers ever since he was in his late teens, it was the main reason he took this job in the first place, but none of the people he had read about came close to _him_.

Something about the serial killer’s works also felt personal to Mark, as if they were dedicated to him, and oftentimes, a sick, twisted thought that he might be The Sculptor’s muse would unbiddenly creep at the back his mind, but he would quickly dismiss the idea.

There was no way The Sculptor would know about his existence—let alone be interested in him.

 _Unless_...

“Oh, _wow_.” Jennie loudly exclaimed from somewhere behind the body, effectively snapping him out of his reverie, and Mark noticed that she was holding her phone in one hand. She snapped her head up and looked around her team. “He actually went through the whole trouble of importing dried maple leaves from Canada just for this one.”

Mark watched as Johnny hunched down beside her, trying to sneak a peek at the information she discovered on her phone. “What do you mean?”

“See those leaves?” Jennie asked, pointing at Donald John Truman’s upper back.

Mark hesitantly went over to see what she was talking about, letting his curiosity get the better of him, just in time to see Johnny nodding.

“Yeah. Mark, those are maple leaves, right?”

He took in a deep breath, unsure why he was feeling anxious at the mention of maple leaves, and _looked_.

Each leaf was different from the other, Mark noted. He had seen some of them before when he was a kid, but he was very much unfamiliar with the others.

“Right, but it’s not just one kind. The Sculptor left ten different species of maple leaves, all of which are native to Canada,” Jennie explained, showing a picture of the said leaves on her phone. She then turned to him, brows knitted together. “Does this ring a bell to you, Mark? You grew up in Canada, right? Do you know if different kinds of maple leaves mean something up there?”

He stood frozen in place, a cold wave of realization washing over him as his mind scattered all over the place, trying to piece everything together.

 _The cross_.

 _The lion_.

 _The maple leaves_.

All of them pointed to the same conclusion.

“Hey,” he registered Lucas’ low, worried voice whisper by his side, pulling Mark back into reality. The man placed a gloved hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze before leaning into his ear. “Are you okay?”

Mark shuddered, feeling his throat close up as he finally found the last missing piece of the puzzle.

 _It was all for him_.

#  **LUCAS**

** GRAFTON, WEST VIRGINIA **

Lucas’ breath hitched at sight before him.

He felt his heart rate pick up, a speed in which he had never experienced before, and a shiver ran down his spine, sending goosebumps prickling all over his skin. His gaze wandered around his dark surroundings, keeping an eye out for anyone or anything that might be lurking in the shadows, before deciding to inch closer towards the body.

Lawrence Go, co-conspirator and assistant of The Sculptor’s first victim, was hoisted up high on an old maple, his body only being illuminated by the half-lit candles placed around the tree.

Lucas puffed a breath.

The man had always been vocal about their agency’s lack of urgency in capturing The Sculptor after Roa Tuttle’s death, even using his power to place himself at the forefront of the investigation despite not being affiliated with any branch of law enforcement. The man occasionally would appear on national television as well, demanding for justice and asking for the public’s prayers.

It was strange seeing the man like this.

The man’s entire body was tightly bound with a thick, natural rope adorned with several tiny red roses— _walkos_ , Lucas presumed, noticing the flowers’ distinct smell buried underneath the faint rotting stench of the corpse—contrasting the two white lilies sewn in between his lips.

The man also held a polished baseball bat in his right hand, Lucas noted, its thick end pierced with several arrows going in different directions, while he had his grip on a red apple with the other.

Then there were his wings.

 _Butterfly wings_ , to be exact.

They were made with shards of broken glass, all glued together on a set of dead tree branches that were then bent to form both the forewings and hindwings, and they were outstretched by gut strings—similar to the ones used on Francis Duke’s body.

 _Huh_ , he huffed to himself. Whoever made this certainly knew what they were doing.

His amusement suddenly died down as his ears picked up a rustling noise from his right, too noticeable for an animal, followed by the sound of a pistol being cocked and the light footsteps that were treading carefully across the orchard.

Lucas grinned, not even bothering to look away from the body. He could recognize those footsteps even with his eyes closed.

 _Finally_.

“And here I was thinking you were too oblivious to catch on.”

“Don’t move,” the man warned, slowly walking into the light with his service pistol aimed directly at him. “Hands where I can see them.”

Lucas obliged before looking over to the man, slightly feeling offended that the thought would still cross the man’s mind even after all the creations he had dedicated to him. “I would never hurt you, Mark.”

If he was surprised by his admission, Mark didn’t show it. Instead, he just continued moving at a slow, cautious pace until they were only a few feet away from each other.

Mark looked beautiful even in the dark, Lucas thought inwardly with a smile, etching the man’s features in his mind while he stood still. His frame was just right, as was everything about him, and his face was what he had always imagined Cabanel’s Fallen Angel would look like without the arm obstructing it.

And his eyes…

Lucas wanted to rip them out and hold onto them forever.

“Who is it?” Mark asked from across him. He raised a brow at the man in confusion, not understanding what he meant and what he was supposed to answer. Mark lowered his weapon. “Your muse.”

The question made him chuckle. He put his arms down without warning and turned his whole body to face him. “You wouldn’t be standing where you are if you hadn't figured that out.”

The man visibly clenched his jaw. “Why me, then?”

“I like to look at beautiful things,” he answered with a shrug and a smug grin. Mark fully lowered his weapon this time, only holding it now with just his right hand, but Lucas continued, leaving no room for the man to ask another question. “What about you? How did you figure it out?”

A look of surprise passed Mark’s face for a brief moment, as if the man didn’t anticipate Lucas to ask him that, before he cleared his throat and brought back his stoic expression. “The pendants and the leaves were about me.”

“That’s it?” Lucas challenged, tilting his head to the side in a mocking way. “You do know that won’t hold up well in court, right?”

“I know.” Mark walked towards him again, stopping right in front of the body. “And I’m not planning on taking you anywhere.”

“Then what do you want to do with me?”

The man nodded at the tableau. “Look at it again.”

Lucas did so without any form of hesitation, dragging his eyes back to Lawrence Go’s body. A cold breeze brushed past them, causing the tree branches to rattle and for some of the candles to go out.

“What do you see?”

“A human butterfly,” Lucas answered plainly, refusing to analyze a work that wasn’t his own. “It’s very beautiful, but this isn’t one of mine.”

A long pause hung heavy in the night’s air.

The sound of the crickets chirping near them grew louder with each passing second, building up Lucas’ anticipation to hear what Mark was going to say.

“I know,” the man responded, releasing a heavy breath. Lucas looked at him through his periphery, trying to catch a glimpse of the man’s facial expressions, only to see that Mark was staring directly at him.

“I made it for you.”

Everything went still.

Lucas felt his heart leap out of his chest. He faced Mark, unconsciously dropping the pompous façade that he was wearing, and gaped at the man as his brain tried to process what he had just told him. Mark simply stared right back at him, their eyes fixed on one another, as if he was waiting for something to click inside Lucas’ head.

The butterfly wings, the bat, and the arrows… this was a homage to his Eros sculpture.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

“It’s Anteros,” he said softly, feeling the nerves underneath his skin thrum in excitement. Lucas briefly wondered how silly he probably looked—imagining a desperate puppy wagging his tail while waiting for a bag of treats—but he found in himself that he didn’t care.

Not when Mark’s eyes were shining at him like _this_.

“Yes.”

“The god of requited love.”

“ _Yes._ ”

Time seemed to stop then.

He didn’t know who made the first move, the darkness around them felt as if it had miraculously shifted around in a blur, and suddenly they were only inches away from each other, the cold, windy night turning their breaths into a cloudlike mist.

“You can still run away,” Lucas warned, not wanting to impose anything on Mark. He would never willingly do anything to ruin the man.

And how could he?

Mark was already a living masterpiece.

The man tiptoed and leaned toward his ear, sending the butterflies in Lucas’ stomach into a frenzy, and let out a breathy chuckle. “You’ll have to do more than that to scare me away, big guy.”

The words unexpectedly stirred a primal need inside him, one that practically yelled at Lucas to touch, to hold, and to _claim_ … but the man in front of him had already beaten him to it.

Mark pushed himself up in the blink of an eye, reaching to cup Lucas’ face with both hands, and pulled him down to slot their mouths together.

Fireworks crackled in Lucas’ ears as his hands instinctively gripped at Mark’s hips, pulling the man’s body impossibly closer to his own. He felt the warm, euphoric sensation from his stomach rise and bloom in his chest, intoxicating him even further, and he couldn’t help but lower his defenses and let the man stake his claim on him.

 _It was exhilarating_.

For the first time in his life, Lucas felt complete.

“You could’ve just told me, you know?” Mark asked as soon as they parted, pressing his forehead against his while they both gasped for air. “This could’ve all been avoided.”

“Honestly, love,” he whispered into Mark’s lips, a mischievous lopsided grin plastered on his face as he gently caressed the man’s nape. “Where’s the romance in that?”


End file.
